Three MTNL engineers given 3 yrs jail term in corruption case

New Delhi: An executive engineer and two other officials of the MTNL were sentenced to three years in jail for paying over Rs 3 lakhs to some private builders for repairing the floors of a Sanchar Haat, which was never done.

Special CBI Judge Dinesh Kumar Sharma gave jail terms to Executive Engineer Nihal Chand, Assistant Engineer R C Bansal, and Junior Engineer Anil Kumar after convicting them for committing offences of cheating and forgery under the IPC and also those under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The court also awarded two years` jail term to private contractor Gulshan Kumar, owner of M/s Sarvodaya Construction Private Ltd here, who was only convicted for the criminal conspiracy, cheating and forgery along with them.

"In the present case, Nihal Chand, R C Bansal and Anil Kumar being public servant abused their position and got pecuniary advantage for Gulshan Kumar by raising forged and fabricated bills.

"Accused persons also entered into conspiracy and cheated the state by dishonestly inducing for making the payment. The accused persons also in the conspiracy committed forgery by preparing a bill i.E. Document for transfer of the money and also used the forged bills as a genuine document," the court said, imposing a cost of Rs 60,000 on three officials and Rs 40,000 on Kumar.

The CBI had alleged that the accused officials, all posted with the Civil Wing of MTNL, had passed two bills totalling Rs 3,98,936 in favour of Kumar on January 21 and September 12, 2003 as "payment" for repair work done at Sanchar Haat in Shakti Nagar here.

The CBI in 2006 had charge-sheeted four MTNL officials including Senior Engineer P K Bhalla. He, however, was discharged from the case due to lack of evidence against him.

The agency had said investigation into the matter had revealed that the officials had not followed any legal formalities to award the work Kumar.

The charge sheet alleged that Kumar was paid the amount despite lack of any documentary or physical evidence to show that the repairs were actually carried out.

"In the present case, the public servants in conspiracy with private contractors did not discharge their duties in larger public and social interest. The greed in them over took their duties towards the office," the court said, while directing them to serve the jail term.